Images

Stamps Worth Using

Four postage stamps on envelopes ready to mailI got tired of modern postage stamps. They were so bland and predictable (more flowers! more historical figures! more landscapes!), and the mere act of sticking them on a letter seemed like wasted effort.

But see what we have here! A Scout with a pony tail! The Starship Enterprise! Reprints of heavily engraved 19th century classics! I love this stuff. Even the 24c Inverted Jenny, though it’s a $2 face value.

What are stamps for?

Vintage stamps pay for Priority Mail
Years ago, before Forever stamps and ClickNShip prepaid mailing labels, I bought a bunch of stamps for potential Express Mail. I also bought a batch of 1c, 5c, and 10c stamps. Those were to let me use the 33c stamps and such when the letter rate changed to 34c. Forever stamps made that irrelevant.

I finally unloaded the above stamps by paying for a Priority Mail package. I love the ‘upside down airplane’ stamp, a reprint based on the celebrated 24c Inverted Jenny airmail stamp (a.k.a. C3a among hardcore US philatelists). The blue profile of Ben Franklin dates from the late 1800s in style, but was recently reprinted by the USPS.

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My favorite meme from 2015

A neighbor has a variant of the Gadsden Flag flying under his American Flag. Instead of yellow, it’s black, but it has the snake and the “Don’t Tread On Me.”

I haven’t found anyone on the Internet who offers a Gadsden Flag with the “Send Snacks” motto. I’d buy one in a second.

This is also a “test posting” – WordPress has a “featured image” setting and “image post” format. I’m wondering what they do.

 

WordPress and Facebook

Memo to self: next time I edit one of my WordPress postings, be sure to edit the “Publicize” property in the upper left corner.

If I’m updating an old post, I must be sure to un-check Facebook so I don’t republish an old post. If I’m creating a new post (like this one) that doesn’t need to go to Facebook, I should also un-check Facebook.

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